Benjamin Wachs: Violence poses uncomfortable choices

Friday

Last week, the city of Los Angeles shut down dozens of blocks for more than six hours, effectively declaring martial law on a chunk of the metropolis to deal with gang violence.

Last week, the city of Los Angeles shut down dozens of blocks for more than six hours, effectively declaring martial law on a chunk of the metropolis to deal with gang violence.

In the last year, we’ve had four shooting sprees on college campuses (in Virginia, Louisiana, Illinois and Delaware), two mass murders at shopping malls (in Nebraska and Utah), a church slaying (in Colorado) and the killing of a Missouri mayor at a town hall meeting.

Public space is no longer “safe” space, and from big cities to rural towns coast to coast, elected officials are asking the same question: What do we do now?

It’s a good question, but it isn’t the first time it’s been asked. New forms of violence seem to be the hallmark of modernity. Gang violence, crack cocaine, trade wars, school shootings, high-profile violent pedophilia, domestic terrorism – every few years in the modern era we get astonished by a new twist on man’s inhumanity to man.

It’s time to admit to an unpalatable truth: These are not isolated incidents. In the modern world, there are far more potential violent actors – and far more reasons to be violent – than ever before in history. The trends of modernity – faster, better, more diverse – all apply to violence, too. Call it Moore’s Law for homicide.

Because we’ve tried to view each new trend in death as an isolated incident, our responses have only made the problem worse. The public has consistently demanded measures that are at once more draconian and less effective.

Mandatory minimum sentencing hasn’t reduced crime, but it has interfered with rehabilitation and decimated communities. The zero-tolerance policies made after Columbine have not prevented further attacks but have led to students being expelled for having aspirin, nail clippers and butter knives. The public’s insistence on “doing something” rather than “doing something right” has easily claimed as many victims as the violence that provoked them.

That may be changing.

This time, I hear a much sadder, more subdued and mature public coming to terms with the fact that we are not prepared to handle a world where gangs can shut down whole city sections and good students who go off their meds can rip schools apart.

We are beginning to realize that we are at a crossroads, staring down the barrel of two very difficult alternatives. Dealing with what once was unthinkable will require trade-offs tomorrow.

To deal with a citizenry that is both more empowered and more alienated at once, either government will need to be redesigned and refocused to address the issue of public safety, becoming in some ways more intrusive (despite howls of protest) and less involved in other social issues (despite howls of protest).

Or we’ll have to lower our expectations by admitting that modernity is just too violent for governments to handle. The social contract will be amended, and public safety will be a luxury instead of a right.

One is dangerously close to totalitarianism, the other to chaos. It’s no wonder we don’t want to choose.

But if we don’t choose, the choice will be made for us. Many of the same privacies we might need to give up in order to really address our more violent modernity are the ones vanishing anyway under society’s new digital eyes – and many of the same rights we might infringe on are increasingly meaningless in a corporate-powered world. We may only be giving up what we’d lose anyway, and getting something in the bargain.

Meanwhile, we are increasingly desensitized to the violence around us. Our children may already be growing up with an entirely different social contract in their heads and a different threshold for accepting a violent society. If that’s coming, better to squeeze it for all the civic good we can.

The most important thing to realize – and I think the public’s starting to – is that this is the new normal. We’re not going back.

Whether that realization helps us get to a better future depends on how much we’re willing – and able – to negotiate with the uncomfortable truths of the present.

The worst-case scenario is that we accept violence we don’t need to, or trade in our rights for solutions that don’t work.

We can’t talk about specific solutions until we can talk about that.

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